At the feet of Bhudda

 morning prayers

Last night I slept under the stars again, this time part way up a volcano on the south west coast of Jeju; where a bhuddist temple is located. I was passing by after dark, and couldn't resist stopping, thank God. I wandered up where a bunch of people wearing strange yellow hats and organising flowers were; turns out the next morning was some sort of special event; but either way, I wandered up and let curiousity get the best of me, so I headed all the way to the temple at the top. This temple turned out the be a natural cave formation in this lava dome, with a sweeping archway stretching itself toward the heavens, and a likeness of Bhudda was placed atop a set of stairs lined with tallow candles and lotus casts. It was breathtaking; and my camera battery was dead, so I headed down the volcano, grabbed a fresh battery and headed back up again to capture this beatiful place as best I could. I was completely absorbed in the atmosphere; of the majesty that surrounded me, and the peaceful solitute of the night, and watching the fishing trolleys off at sea; I was definitely staying here the night.

So I camped out, and had a realy good sleep, waking only twice - once to do my best to be avoid being chewed on by a hungry mosquito, and again at about 4:15am to the beatin of temple drums and the gonging of ...well a big, loud gong. Thankfully that lasted no longer than about 15mins, and stayed asleep until I awoke for the sunrise just after 6am, when I hoofed it one final time up the volcano. I was so glad I had gone the previous night, there was now a cleaning lady taking away all the offerings that had been left the previous day, as well as the keen bean early bird prayer warriors, but the majesty of the night and stars glimmering off the cave walls was a bit dimmer in the sunlight. I came back down for another breakfast of champions (this time I was out of crackers), and watched the early morning event that was on, and then watched get torn down what I had seen put up the preceeding evening.

inside the temple at night

                                               inside the temple                                  the mops next to where i slept